Thursday, July 31, 2008

31 July 2008. Gray morning, touch of wind. Return from the north coast--this from Tuesday:

Mist over the headlands at Stillwater Cove, early morning, cliffs veiled, revealed, veiled again. Gull on dark waters, white, an act of God--or man--sound of crow from high above, in the pines on the hill. Lapping, glistening, smooth--only the beginnings of a breeze. Black wings arc through the mist, feathers spread wide at the ends as he turns in flight. Bull kelp--knotty gold-brown bulbous protuberances massed across the inlet--that particular smell--ocean's edge. Continent's even. A single winding silver path opens to the sea...

Monday, July 28, 2008

Our great and compassionate good-spirit, the much-admired Alyosha. Namesake of goodness--of all the brothers, this first. Even if a few squirrels suffered his mighty attentions, --it was simply in the blood--the great open-ended flight, racing across fields, head to the wind, careening, joyful...always...

Friday, July 25, 2008

25 July 2008. Creamy tan pink sky with lip of sun just appearing over hills to the east.

Chugo, an Argentine friend--well, in a vicarious kind of way. Pictures on line--"por Chugo", posing in front of small, battered white car, against the dry hills of Tafí. Travelling with his family, apparently--wife, three daughters, we follow them through rest stops, motels, a plainish little pizza place in Tucumán, the one with wooden tables, straw placemats, everyone sitting close together. It's wintertime, his wife never takes off her hooded parka, light blue, like her pale blond hair. (¿Lydia, quizás?) Then it's morning: one sloe-eyed daughter, the oldest, in black, at table with white cloth, wide glass of milk in hand, her hair damp from the shower, looking back at her father...

Thursday, July 24, 2008

24 July 2008. Sun over misty hills, dawn. Four crows working the street, pairs again, friends... Two boys in track clothes, early, crossing in front: ancestors from Ireland, Senegal...heads thrown back, laughing... In the evening--doves.

La quebrada. The broken places--vally of Humahuaca, the ancient route from east to west, from Inca times, over the cordillera, vertebrae of a continent, the road to Potosí. Stone houses made of mountain, mountain made of stone, arch and searing. A Spanish church--a haven within--dimpled walls, tiled roof, blue domes of the Moors... Córdoba, or Damascus--here reaching for a heaven of their own, the arid parched distant cobalt skies of Jujuy...

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

22 Julio 2008. Gray morning, four black crows on a single streetlamp stanchion, high above. Two by two, it seems. Moving closer, the ones on the left, each reaching out to touch the other's beak. A perfectly normal way of being: tendresse among the corvidiae.

Dos hermanos, Tafí del Valle, Tucumán. Their cast off clothes, hand-me-downs, the older one already with the stance of a man, jacket arm draped around his brother's shoulder, small hand exposed. Eyes askance--the hour, the setting, the world? Rubber boots for an awaited rain, dry hills--arroyos and vados--en las sendas de Tafí...

Friday, July 18, 2008

18 July 2008. Chilly and gray, November in July. Bouncy jogger in cerise top on Portland at dawn, arms akimbo at her hips. Ying along green edge of pool, walking slowly, graceful in her own solid way. Head bent forward, meditative, counting her steps.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

17 July 2008. Soft gray sky, black crow careens past blank stucco wall, feathers spread wide, distinct... Truck rumble--flash of the number two train--muffled squeal on downhill brakes... Cast-iron pillars with rivets the size of steel apricots, a vertical dotting that stitches the whole business into one, massive hidden cave-built world... As opposed to mild Solano, acorn gatherers, reed baskets, finely woven grasses--a culture of patience, more than anything, where the cycles of fog and sun and rain bring almost all...

Boleadoras, stones of a certain weight, wrapped in leather, seams stitched by hand. The smell of horses--pasture--"grasses eaten by cattle," from the old French. See "pastor," 1242--a shepherd. Also, "spiritual guide, "shepherd of souls." "To lead to pasture..."

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

16 July 2008. Also gray, inviting wool blanket of a quiet Saturday morning--but it's Wednesday, of course, as woman with floppy brown hair clambers out of sloping late-model white car, gum in the side of her mouth, hand loose in sweatshirt pocket as she fumbles with keys, eyeing the avenue up and down before bounding across on the diagonal...papers in hand, heading our way...

Or, a makeshift wicker corral somewhere on the Argentine plains--after Prilidiano Pueyrredón, whose attentive grasp of each costume gesture--the tilt of a panza de burra, or a good pair of calzoncillos...or the figure with lazo in one hand, leaning forward on the balls of his feet, a blur of charging cattle in the background, snorting, mountains of dust, pampa sun at midday...

It's about 1863--even before Mansilla's excursión into Tierra Adentro. To the Ranqueles, the Araucanas... Cacique Mariano Rosas... Baigorrita...el Indio Blanco...

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

15 July 2008. Gray all the way, moofy blanket of almost wet, puffs of cleaners smoke, whitish, drifting upwards... Children's voices now--two little ones near the workbench. They've got the yellow highliter going... Mother swoops in, cheerful but insistent, "Get the lid back on, you did a good job...let's go..."

Let's go. Bueno, che... Circle of the unexpected. A small guitar, on the shape of the vigüela, close to the ground, gathered. It's evening. Cebando mate. Brewing mate. A calabazo--golden-yellow gourd--dull silver band around top, filled with aromatic gray-brown leaves. Yerba--Cruz de Malta. Insert bombilla--hollow silver metal tube... Add water, not quite at a boil, from small dented kettle... almost to the top.

Unexpected presence: Alyosha and Nicola. Qué boludo. What the hell are they doing here...? Out on the pampa, far beyond Huanguelen, night approaching...

Monday, July 14, 2008

Earlier... Sylvia in her Subaru wagon, a nice dark green, bending forward over morning paper as she awaits aerobics. Pool filled soon with older veterans--all sizes and shapes, splashing the water back and forth with their hands, with poly-foam wands... Sprightly beach-ball coach, also splashing...

Thursday, July 10, 2008

"Babylon...statue made of different metals...that's in the Book of Daniel..." "Thanks, Robert." "Yes, now your day will go well..." Fragments on the horizon of knowledge: La Teoría del Conocimiento. Book from Eudeba in 1962, gray cover, type with narrow black border--à la française, apparently. Purchased in a bookstore in Buenos Aires--a kind of keepsake, unopened. No, opened in snatches, for a few moments here and there, over the years, trying to make sense of the unending abstractions therein...

A kind of language that listens mostly to itself...thought thinking thought, as Stan Rice might have said. Or better, brain doing brain. Closer to the core. Suzanne Langer: image of early man, standing before a group of trees as they sway wildly in the wind. Standing without words--silencio--only the dance of the snake from deep down within...

Monday, July 07, 2008

7 Julio 2008. Clearish skies, promise of a warm day. Characters before the window--tall guy with rumpled wavey hair, Ichabod Crane; finely-made black leather laptop bag, San Francisco bus. Blond girl in form-fitting skirt, folds of skin on back of her neck as she strains to catch sight of the G. Bag of groceries and supplies, something leafy and green on top...

La Pasto Verde, a song from the south. Neuquen--composer, folklorist and poet--Marcelo Berbel, singing with his sister, their flights and intertwinings, given modern form, but in the elaboration, old, old... Even more so, José Larralde, singing it as a lament--as with so many of his songs. Trayendo Pasados, the name of one album. Bringing yesterdays... or, carrying the past...

Or into the future. As with text from Nathaniel, in Amsterdam, unexpected. "Give my regards to the Nieuwe Prinsengracht...", the Hortus, the Plantaage... The Zwanenburgwal...

The future. As with Nubian goats--two small ones, dressed in black, upturned faces to their mother's breasts, fore and aft. Dressed for success--and hardly dressed at all. Rather a kind of innocent charm, immediate and sweet, built in, like a Wolf range in Borrego, or the Fowles Street closets with sliding doors. Mom's clothes, from years before. Patterns and colors--blacks, gold, olive-green. Touch of red-orange on brown, melded now...

About Me

The painter Anthony Dubovsky was born in San Diego, California, in 1945. He studied with Willard Midgette at Reed College, and has lived in Warsaw, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, and Jerusalem. "An exploration in which the goal becomes a part of the discovery..." You can reach him at anthonydubovsky.com